Following their dismal showing in the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers and subsequent CFU Olympic Qualifiers, the Golden Jaguars management staff allegedly selected a player over the stipulated age requirement to be a part of their roster for the recently concluded Olympic tourney.
According to sources close to the federation, the alleged players is a defender from the East Bank of Demerara who is a left-back and plays for Grove Hi-Tech.
Efforts to reach Chairman of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Normalization Committee Clinton Urling to clarify the issue proved futile.
The sources revealed that Matthews was sent back to Guyana after it was discovered by the football authorities in the host nation of Antigua and Barbuda that he was over the stipulated u-23 age limit for the tournament.
This discovery allegedly occurred before the commencement of their opening fixture against Cuba. Guyana lost the match to the Cubans by a 2-0 score line. The source further divulged that William Europe was the player that took the position of Matthews Jr. in the starting XI.
According to the sources, it is uncertain how such an incident occurred, given that the management staff and the GFF would have possessed all the necessary documentation on the event and the players before they departed local shores.
The sources further declared that it’s very strange they would not have known that the player was over the age limit, noting that they are always regulations in place for the governing of junior tournaments with regards to the player age eligibility.
This information is circulated to all the competing federations before the start of the event to avoid embarrassing occurrences like this one from happening, the sources said.
According to the sources, the management staff and GFF had to have known about this anomaly before they shortlisted the provisional training squad and eventual final roster on June 20th to compete in the tournament.
The sources further declared that it seems like the management staff and GFF tried to cover up issue since no information emanated from the federation on the matter due to its embarrassing nature. According to the sources, individuals within the GFF and the team’s management staff must take blame for this fiasco.
